Monasticism in Russian History

As Vasilii O. Kliuchevskii argued long ago, the history of medieval Russia can hardly be written without close attention to monasticism. Monasticism is a central expression of Orthodox spirituality, culture, and ecclesiastical organization. In monasticism, the individual renounces sexuality and family, career and wealth, and ultimately his own will. The purpose is to train oneself like a spiritual athlete, so that one is able to follow God’s will completely rather than one’s own egotistical desires—so that one becomes God-centered rather than self-centered. This, according to Orthodoxy, is the “path to salvation.” Although Orthodoxy has never made any formal distinction or categorization between the “religious” and the laity, monasticism has always been regarded as an ideal of living the Christian life. Since its origins in late third-century Egypt, monasticism has been central to the Orthodox Church, both in Byzantium and in Russia. Never divided into distinct “orders,” as in the West, each monastic community establishes its own rule. Nonetheless, Orthodoxy developed its own, distinct traditions. One extreme is the anchoritic approach of hermits living in solitude, devoting themselves to prayer balanced by labor necessary to survive. The other extreme is the approach of those who live in community, exemplified by the cenobitic rule, in which all the individual’s labors go to benefit the entire community, while all one’s necessities (food, clothing, and cell) are provided by the community. Moreover, obedience to the abbot and collective, liturgical worship are also central to cenobitic communities. In actual practice, most communities follow some mixture of these two “ideal” models. Orthodox monasticism has also varied in its relationship to the world, from being intimately involved in it by providing the Church’s leadership and education, as well as providing society with philanthropic services, to being more strictly separated from it and seeking to save the world through intercession.¹

Kliuchevskii laid emphasis on the central role of monasteries in colonizing the Russian Northeast from the 14th century on. He described how hermits, in search of solitude, pushed into unsettled forest areas to found monastic communities, soon followed by peasants in search of free land; together they developed what would form part of the Great Russian heartland.² Once monks had developed a given area, some felt a renewed need for greater solitude and pressed still further into the forest, a pattern that repeated itself as Muscovite Rus′ gradually grew in territory and power. The monastery played an even greater role in the formation of medieval Russian culture. Indeed, Orthodox monasticism was Muscovite culture: its artist, its architect, its writer and reader. James Billington has observed that “the Orthodox Church brought Russia out of its dark ages” of Mongol occupation, giving the people a sense of unity and providing a higher purpose for its princes. “Within the church,” he continued, “the monasteries played the key role in the revival of Russian civilization.”³ Not only did monasteries serve as fortresses and colonizing centers; they also had a virtual monopoly over letters and art (the famous iconographer Andrei Rublev being the outstanding example). The icons, chronicles, and saints’ lives produced within monastery walls glorified not only the Church but also Muscovy, popularizing the official ideology that Russian Orthodoxy was the special culmination of sacred history and that Muscovite rulers were the “chosen bearers of this destiny.”⁴ In turn, the rulers of Muscovy protected and promoted monastic [End Page 308...